Now that Christmas and Chanukah have past and 2017 is coming to a close it is that wonderful time of year in which one can start to reflect on how the past year has gone. People often look back at what they have accomplished and manage to achieve. They look back at how things have changed and reflected on the growth they have made throughout the year.

People also look back and reflect on what might not have gone great about the new year and ways to better themselves in the future. These “New Year’s Resolutions” are meant to inspire change for the better in the new year.

However, as the New Year continues and people grow busier and busier there tend to be a common theme of resolutions that get placed on the back burner. Here is a list of the most common unachieved New Year’s resolutions:

1. Hitting the gym

After the holiday season, many a people feel the need to lose some extra pounds they may have packed on due to extra gingerbread and mashed potato consumption. This leads to the typical “I’m going to start putting that gym membership to use finally” mentality. However the crowded spin classes and increase machine use tends to thin as the month of January goes on.

2. Healthy living

In the continued pursuit of cutting pounds and living a more natural life, many decide to try “sugar-free” and “no processed food” diets. These diets, in my opinion, are not only bland but an unrealistic way of losing the pounds and keeping them off. Although, I have a tradition of eating ice cream as my New Year’s breakfast so maybe I’m not the best source of nutritional advice.

3. Winter cleaning

The minute the New Year’s clock strikes midnight everyone seems to think they’re Cinderella and that the even though the carriage is now a pumpkin it’s going to be the cleanest darn pumpkin in all the land. Just because it’s now 2018 doesn’t mean you’re magically going to give up that third-grade spelling bee trophy you’ve been hanging on to for the past 20 years.

4. A visit to the love doctor

Relationships. Some people want to avoid them, others get in them. Some want to better their relationships while others want to end them. No matter where they stand on the chessboard of love, lots of people want to change their position. Whether it’s finally taking their opponents queen or simply moving their pawn lots of people have love related goals. How successful are these goals? Well I guess that depends on how well you play chess.

5. A visit to the actual doctor

This is one of the goals that I personally hope is more achievable. Whether it’s an annual checkup or finally getting that mole checked going to the doctor is important. However, for some people, whether time wise or financial, it sadly isn’t always realistic.

6. Study habits

After receiving fall quarter grades many students decide that it might be time to take a visit to some of the places they failed to populate last quarter. For example class and the library. Don’t worry students, a quick google map search may help you locate these foreign locations. However as the 8:00 am’s seem to get earlier, the winter colder, and the parties larger, classes and the library become vacant only to be populated the week before finals.

7. Self-sculpting

Working on being a better person? Great! Working on being content with yourself? Great! Have no idea how to do that besides saying you’re going to do it? Not so great! Every year I seem to hear a stream of “I really need to work on myself this year” and “I want to be a more (insert attractive personality adjective here) person”, and that’s great! I just never seem to actually see a lot of people taking steps towards doing it.

New Year’s can be a great time to reflect and change for the better. Just make sure you’re not falling into the trap of saying you’re going to do something you actually won’t do. Set your goals, research the best way to achieve them, and create steps to help you along the way. It’s great to make goals. Without them, we would never improve, and self-improvement is always worth striving for. With that in mind, I wish you all a happy New Year!

1